


roads left in both of your shoes

by helloearthlings



Category: King Falls AM (Podcast)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Depression, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Healing, Hopeful Ending, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Post episode 75, Post-Canon, Reconciliation, Suicide Attempt, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-03
Updated: 2018-05-03
Packaged: 2019-05-01 12:53:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14521026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helloearthlings/pseuds/helloearthlings
Summary: “You’re staying with me tonight,” Ben mumbled into Sammy’s shirt. He still hadn’t let go, his grip only tightening.“Of course I am,” Sammy whispered, his voice scratching. He didn’t want to let go either.He wanted to stay. For the first time since Jack was gone, he wanted to stay.





	roads left in both of your shoes

**Author's Note:**

> I'm here to bring a message of pain and suffering and complete awe at how amazing the last episode was. So, so good. So naturally I'm here to make that shit sadder but also provide some actual hope and catharsis for Sammy Stevens's healing in the future. I don't know how you guys read that last scene with the Rainbow Lights, but that sounded like the voice of a man who's spent so long wanting to die realizing for the first time that he wants to live. 
> 
> Basically, this is a story about Sammy and Ben Hugging and Sammy and Lily Snarking and Me Being Sad. Hope you enjoy!

Sammy’s car was smoking by the time he pulled into the parking lot of the auditorium.

Adrenaline still surging through his chest, a look in his mirrors every other second to see the radio station splintered in the distance, and his car seconds away from catching alight.

Fuck.

He stumbled out of the car with some difficulty getting the door open, his eyes too blurred with tears to find the handle on the first try. A breeze of cool night air hit his face as he finally pulls himself out the vehicle just as the trunk began to go from a flicker to an all-out flame.

Sammy didn’t remember if he had anything important in the car, couldn’t possibly think of anything as trivial as his phone or water bottle right now.

He could hear a crowd somewhere beyond the ringing in his ears, but it felt miles away instead of only a few yards where he could see bodies and faces, though they were blurry and he couldn’t quite tell the differences between them.

He knew when he saw Ben, though, because Ben didn’t hold back. Ben ran straight through the crowd and directly into Sammy, his arms squeezing Sammy’s torso like he couldn’t quite believe they were both here.

Sammy couldn’t quite believe it either.

“Ben,” he tried to say, but he wasn’t sure if anything tangible came out of his mouth as he wrapped his arms around Ben’s shoulders, pulling Ben’s face into the crook his neck. He’d been crying for so long but everything seemed so much harder and faster with Ben there, with him.

He didn’t think he’d ever see Ben again yet here he was, in his arms, sobbing into his shoulder, and letting out a stream of nearly incomprehensible curse words.

“Fucking – can’t fucking – believe – fuck you, oh my God – shit – goddammit, man you can’t just – fuck, shit, Sammy – fuck – I fucking hate you – don’t you ever – shit shit shit– don’t you ever – fuck, Sammy –”

“Ben,” Sammy said it again, and it actually comes out the right way this time, though his mind is foggy and he can’t quite hear it properly. He tried to say something else, articulate something about how happy he was to see him, but words just wouldn’t come.

He buried his face in Ben’s hair instead, hoping that it would help Ben understand whatever it was that Sammy had tried to say.

It took him a moment to realize that Ben didn’t run for him alone, that Emily was at his shoulder, peering anxiously over at them, and Sammy let go of his iron grip on Ben when he saw the tears streaming down her face.

“Dammit, Sammy,” she whispered at him, her voice raspy and terrified. She was shaking.

Sammy wordlessly let go of Ben just with one arm and it was enough for Emily to rush toward him, colliding with him at top speed, her forehead on his shoulder as she cried against him, and Ben let go of Sammy with an arm to squeeze her hand with.

“Ain’t you a sight for sore eyes,” Sammy heard Troy’s choked up voice behind him, and suddenly Troy was there in this mess of a hug that was more like a collective sob than anything.

God. Fuck. Sammy had almost lost this – lost all of this – lost everything – he’d already lost everything once, how did he think that he could do it again?

“The hell were you thinking?” Ben head butts Sammy’s chest without actually stopping hugging him, which is a decidedly Ben Arnold thing to do. “Going out there – along – fuck, Sammy, what the hell were you thinking?”

“You know.” Sammy swallowed, hot and horrible, and couldn’t continue the thought. “I wouldn’t – if I could go back, I wouldn’t do it again, Ben. You have to know. I wouldn’t do it again.”

 They stood like that awhile longer until Troy broke off from their little group with a choked sigh. “Just got the message. Chet was out of the building when it – when it happened –”

Sammy squeezed his eyes shut even tighter. God. Chet. If the lights had gotten to Chet – if they’d avoided him but gotten to Chet –

“Do you think they knew?” Emily let go of Sammy and Ben with a new alertness in her tear-stained face. “About you not being there? Could the lights have been targeting the two of you?”

“But they didn’t get me,” Sammy said, not quite believing his own ears. This all seemed like such a surreal dream. He’d been so sure – so sure he was about to die – more sure than he’d ever been about anything. His time was finally up except it wasn’t, it wasn’t, somehow he had been given another chance whether he deserved it or not.

“Let’s not think about that tonight,” Troy said, his eyes clearly roaming across Sammy’s body as if he was looking for any sharp object he could be hiding to slit his throat with.

The thought made Sammy want to vomit.

“You’re staying with me tonight,” Ben mumbled into Sammy’s shirt. He still hadn’t let go, his grip only tightening.

“Of course I am,” Sammy whispered, his voice scratching. He didn’t want to let go either.

He wanted to stay. For the first time since Jack was gone, he wanted to stay.

* * *

 

If tonight was any other night, Sammy would have mercilessly teased Ben about having approximately zero items of clothing in his apartment that came anywhere close to fitting Sammy.

As it stood, Ben jumped at every little noise, his hands wouldn’t stop shaking, and he wouldn’t even let Sammy take a shower, his eyes too wide with fear.

Sammy supposed he’d given Ben enough good reasons for fear tonight, so he wisely kept his mouth shut for a change and slept in his t-shirt and boxers.

“You can sleep in my bed,” Ben told him after hovering over Sammy as he splashed cold water on his face, just to stop the tears from continuing to fall. “We – well, we’re obviously not going to have to go to work tomorrow. Well, I won’t be. I mean, I don’t know if you want to – if tonight means that you’re actually – I shouldn’t assume –”

“Ben,” Sammy said, his bones practically aching with all that tonight had done to him, but the look on his best friend’s face, the fearful and wild look in his eye, would keep him going. “You got a contract lying around anywhere waiting for a signature?”

The smile on Ben’s face didn’t make tonight worth it, but it made Sammy remember that things could be bright and cheerful and happy and not painfully tragic, even if there was a droplet of tragedy in everything Sammy did.

“You can sign it tomorrow,” Ben said, his voice almost shaking, but this time it was out of joy rather than the trauma that tonight brought.

There was a relief in saying it out loud, in finally giving into Ben. In finally giving into life. Sammy had thought about dying for so long, but life kept winning out despite his best efforts. That meant something.

“Go to sleep, Ben, you’re exhausted,” Sammy said, brushing past his friend as he stepped out of his tiny bathroom and into the bedroom. He sat on the edge of the bed, feeling his own exhaustion threatening to overtake him.

“I –” Ben’s jaw set from where he stood in the doorway, eyes raking up and down Sammy like he couldn’t quite decide just how much hovering he was going to do next. “I’m just going to go get a pillow and blanket and – and sleep on the floor in here.”

“Ben,” Sammy groaned after him, but Ben was already out of the room and down the hall. He fell back onto Ben’s comforter, his headache still raging all these hours later.

He closed his eyes for what felt like half a second, and he heard Ben’s padding footsteps, followed by a creek of the edge of the bed.

“You watching me sleep?” Sammy asked when he was certain that Ben had been perched on the edge of the bed for a while now. “Creeper.”

“Concerned,” Ben said, voice unusually pitchy, and Sammy cracked an eye open to see Ben looking down at him like he was afraid that Sammy would just disintegrate right in front of him.

Sammy knew that feeling all too well.

“Ben, I wouldn’t,” Sammy said a little clumsily, fishing for an explanation for something that he didn’t quite fully understand yet. “Not – not with you here. I’d never.”

That’s how he’d survived until now. Every time he thought about it – about the knives in his kitchen, the pills in his cabinet, driving his car off the road – he would think _no, I can’t, I have to meet Ben for breakfast_ or _no, Ben needs me to help him move tomorrow_ or _not while Ben is hurting like this_ or just _Ben._

“But you almost just did,” Ben’s eyes were so bright and terrified. Sammy felt a crushing guilt.

“That was a mistake,” Sammy said, and he actually believed it. Being there in Perdition Wood, in that cave, with the crawling shadows around him, with the deep and unmistakable knowledge that Jack was close but with the equally important deep and unmistakable knowledge that he couldn’t be here, he knew now that the Void was never going to take him. Even though that twisted bitterly in his chest, it had all changed when he’d seen those rainbows in the sky.

“I won’t do it with you here,” Sammy repeated himself, and resists the urge to reach out and touch to make sure that Ben knew he wasn’t going anywhere. “Like – like that movie. The one with Steve Carrell. Where he won’t kill himself with his nephew in the room.”

“What movie’s this?” Ben sounded almost normal then, like this was a typical day and they were in the studio and poking fun at each other’s taste in movies for the fiftieth time or so.

“The one with the little girl? And Steve Carrell? Steve Carrell’s gay and tried to kill himself, and then he goes and stays with his sister’s family and he’s sleeping in the room with his nephew and his nephew doesn’t talk but he writes down _don’t kill yourself_ on his notepad and Steve Carell tells him that he’d never do it with him in the room…”

Ben smiled down at him like he wanted to tease but couldn’t, his usual brightness mingled with tears.

“I’m doing a bad job explaining,” Sammy mumbled. “ _Little Miss Sunshine._ That’s the movie. Jack loved that movie…”

He trailed off, the aching in his chest growing exponentially. Ben bit his lip and he reached over to pat Sammy’s leg clumsily. He looked as if he wanted to move closer, but held himself back, and Sammy felt another kind of guilt.

“I’ll just – I’ll just make a bed on the floor,” Ben began, resolve heavy in his voice. Not for the first time, Sammy realized how lucky he was to have a best friend in Ben. But tonight felt like the first time he was realizing that Ben needed Sammy just as much as Sammy needed him.

And now he was moving away even though his eyes clearly said he didn’t want to. Sammy didn’t want to be cliché, but tonight’s rocky and horrific events had given him a new perspective on this – on everything – and he couldn’t keep living his life like he was seconds away from biting it.

“Or,” Sammy began hesitantly, “I could get over myself and move over.”

 Tension dropped from Ben’s shoulders as he sighed, and Sammy knew he made the right call as he pulled the covers back and Ben turned off the light switch before crawling in next to him. It was a twin size bed so they were a little too cramped not to touch elbows, but that was alright. Better than alright. Necessary. So Ben would know that Sammy was there and present and not leaving.

“Sammy?” Ben whispered after only a moment of silence. “Was Jack – was Jack there?”

Another wave of bone-deep sadness and exhaustion hit Sammy along with the question, but there was something else now, too.

“I didn’t see or hear him but – but I know he was there. I could feel him there,” Sammy said, more tears springing up in his eyes. “But Ben, I – I think he’s the reason why I survived. I think the Shadow Maker would have taken me but – but Jack wouldn’t let him. I think he saved me just as much as Walt did.”

“I knew I’d like him,” Ben said, his voice strangled and pitchy. “Are you – are you planning on repaying the favor?”

Sammy almost laughed. It was such a Ben way to put it, beating around the bush and yet obvious at the same time.

“Maybe tomorrow you can show me your…thought journal,” Sammy said, a teasing edge to his voice filtering through and he could practically see Ben light up in the darkness of the room.

“Yeah,” Ben said like he couldn’t quite believe it. “Yeah, we can do that.”

They fell into silence again, but Sammy knew that Ben was still awake, his body far too tense to be sleeping even after the day they’d had.

“Ben, I’m sorry,” Sammy found himself whispering after finding his courage and swallowing his pride. “I’m so sorry.”

“You’re here,” Ben said, his voice hard and steely. “You’re here and that’s what matters. All that matters. We’ll figure everything else out.”

Ben had been saying that for weeks now, but this was the first time that Sammy really believed him. They could figure everything else out.

* * *

 

Ben was constantly on high alert during the next few weeks. It seemed like he had set up a rotating schedule of ways in which to keep Sammy busy and active and engaged in the world around him. And not ever, for one second, was Sammy left alone.

It would have been grating if Sammy didn’t love the guy so much. Actually, it would have been extremely grating back before what he and Ben are only referring to as That Night, but Sammy’s perspective on the world around him had become something else entirely since then, so he couldn’t find it in himself to be annoyed.

He was still at Ben’s place – he’d never put his own apartment up for sale, since he hadn’t exactly planned that far ahead beyond _walk into the Void and stop existing_ but Ben wouldn’t let him go back to an empty place with all kinds of sharp tools at his dispense.

Sammy knew that it was all Ben could think about. He would twitch whenever Sammy made any quick or unexpected movement, wake up with a start whenever Sammy so much as rolled over. It wasn’t helping Sammy with the whole feeling guilty thing, but he figured it was up to him to make sure Ben knew he wasn’t going anywhere.

It wasn’t that Sammy was happy now – every day was a new exercise in despair. But he’d stopped thinking of this as a substituted half-life the second he’d seen those rainbow lights and realized how much his life here _meant_ when he thought it was going to be taken from him.

The radio station wasn’t going be up and running anytime soon, but Ben kept them busy in other ways. They helped Loretta with her garden, Ron with the bait shack, got Troy through his shifts at the mall by buying copious amounts of Shake Shack food, babysat Tim and Mary’s kids, visited Cecil in the hospital, got groceries for the old folks in town, and all kinds of ridiculous and sweet Ben Arnold-type activities.

They also spent quite a bit of time at the King Falls Public Library where Ben and Emily pretended not to hold hands under the desk.

Sammy wasn’t going to ask, but after the fourth or fifth time that Emily came over to Ben’s _just to hang out_ and the two spent a suspiciously loud and long ten minutes in the doorway when they said goodnight and Ben came back inside looking pink and flustered, he couldn’t help himself.

“You know you can go spend the night at her place,” Sammy told him seriously, not even smirking a little a bit at how comical and disconcerted he looked at the comment. “I will survive if you leave me alone for the night.”

He regretted his phrasing the second Ben’s eyes went wide at the word _survive._

Ben shook his head jerkily. “I – no, Sammy, it’s not – we’re talking things slow.”

“Yes, a deeply glacial pace that’s been going on for about three years now,” Sammy said with a half-chuckle. “The world won’t end if the two of you…you know…”

There was a flicker of teasing in Ben’s eye. “No. I don’t know. Explain it to me.”

“If you don’t already understand how sex with girls works, I’m the last person on earth you want to explain it,” Sammy said and Ben laughed out loud. Sammy felt almost a little proud that he was able to make a casual joke about his sexuality in front of an actual person.

“Seriously, though,” Sammy said, because somehow he felt it necessary to ruin the mood. “Don’t think I don’t notice when the two of you go on dates. You always drop me off at Troy and Loretta’s and turn various shades of red when I ask where you’re going. You’re not the most subtle person in the world.”

Ben turned one of those shades of red almost immediately. “I just – don’t want you to – to think that we’re –”

“What, happy and in love?” Sammy once again felt uncomfortably guilty about unwittingly forcing his best friend not to share his happiness with him. “Ben, I’m thrilled for you and Emily. It’s about time.”

“I just don’t want you to start thinking about, well, um, what you…don’t have,” Ben said awkwardly, because Ben found it very hard to talk about Jack outside of their daily brainstorming sessions about the thought journal. Sammy knew it was because Ben didn’t want him dwelling on Jack and thinking about going back to Perdition Wood.

But that wasn’t what was happening anymore. The wires in Sammy’s head had been switched around, and no one seemed to understand that but him.

It was probably, now that Sammy thought about it, because he hadn’t explained it to anyone. He’d spent so long decidedly not talking about his problems that it was just second nature.

“Ben,” Sammy began, taking a deep breath, “I’m not going to kill myself. Not now. Not ever. Not by way of Perdition Wood or kitchen knives or the pills that you’ve taken out of the bathroom.”

“But –” Ben began, but Sammy cut him off because once the words started coming they wouldn’t stop.

“I wanted to die for so long,” Sammy said, sick to his stomach at the thought. “I couldn’t stand living without Jack. But I kept living every day – for you. But knowing where Jack was, it was too much for me. To have the chance to see him again – but then he saved me. He saved me and Walt saved me and I escaped and even though I hated them for it at first, I don’t now.”

He took another long breath. “Because then there were the rainbow lights. Right in front of me, threatening to take me. And I realized something. That I didn’t want to die. That I wanted to live and – and see you again, Ben. See you and Emily and Troy and – and this whole goddamn town that gave me so much after I lost _everything_. And not just to say goodbye. I want to see you and Emily get married. I want to see your kids. I want to see Ron fix up the bait shack, and Tim and Mary fix their marriage, and keep exposing the creepy fucks like Frickard and Gunderson. I want to broadcast with you every night. I want to – I want to save Jack. I _need_ to save Jack. I wouldn’t have realized any of this without the rainbow lights. They made me realize – how much more life I had to live.”

Sammy noticed the tears in Ben’s eyes before he noticed the tears in his own.

“Have you ever been to the Golden Gate Bridge?” Sammy asked, and Ben shook his head. “There are all these people at the entrance with brochures about suicide and how you can get help. I’ve heard that every person that’s ever jumped off and survived realized while they were falling that their reasoning was flawed – that they wanted to stop falling. I want to stop falling now, Ben.”

“Do you really mean it?” Ben asked after a beat, his voice thick. But his eyes – they were wide and bloodshot but still so heartbreakingly hopeful.

“I mean it,” Sammy swore, standing up from the kitchen table to wrap an arm around Ben’s shoulder. Ben hugged back fiercely. “I’m still – God, everything is such shit, but I can’t just let you down – let Jack down – and give up. I’ve done enough of that.”

“You’ll be happy someday, I know it,’ Ben squeezed Sammy tightly, his hair tickling Sammy’s chin. “If you just let me help you, we can find him. I swear. And then it will be okay.”

“I believe you,” Sammy told him, and the words were true. Even with his doubtful nature, he believed Ben Arnold could do anything.

He’d believed for so long that the world had something against him – that it had conspired against him to break him to pieces. But then the universe had given him a second and third chance all in one night, to change his mind and work to make his life worth living again.

“But honestly, Ben,” Sammy said as they broke apart after a long minute. “It’s going to be very uncomfortable for everyone involved if you want to bring Emily home and I’m sleeping in your bed. I swear to God I’m not going to hurt myself, but I can live in my apartment and just spend a shit ton of time with you to calm your nerves about it.”

“I just don’t want you to be alone,” Ben said, earnest and wide-eyed. “You said it yourself that that apartment – that it’s not home, that it means nothing to you. My place might be the size of a broom cupboard, but at least you’re not alone here.”

“I’ve got a second bedroom – maybe I’ll get a roommate,” Sammy said as if he just thought of it and not that he’d been mulling it over for a few days now.

Ben raised a suspicious eyebrow at him. “You? A roommate? Who would you want to live with that’s better than me?”

“I didn’t say she was better than you,” Sammy said, “but I think Lily Wright’s probably about to kill whoever runs that motel in Big Pine she’s staying at, so I’d really be doing everyone a favor before she commits a double homicide.”

“You? And Lily?” Ben’s voice grew higher in pitch. “You two hate each other! Well, strongly dislike each other. Why would you want to live with her?”

“It’s hard to explain,” Sammy said, “but my new lease on life isn’t going to mean much unless I start dealing with my shit instead of avoiding it, and Lily Wright…is definitely my shit.”

Ben still looked dubious, so Sammy added “I’ll miss you every day. I promise.”

* * *

 

“I see your interior decorating skills haven’t improved,” Lily said frostily when she came through Sammy’s front door with two small suitcases rolling behind her. She parked them outside the second bedroom door. A ton of Jack’s stuff was inside. She’d probably like to see it.

“Interior decorate, then,” Sammy sniped in response. “Or hire your friend – the fuck’s her name – Cathy, who did our apartment for free in college and covered the whole thing in blue pastels.”

“It’s Katie, and we were her unfortunate first experiment,” Lily said with a raised eyebrow. “She’s doing much better now. Has her own business in Fresno. And Jack liked the blue pastels.”

“That’s because Jack has less taste than either of us,” Sammy muttered under his breath. He and Lily almost shared a smile before they remembered that Jack wasn’t here and that they hadn’t lived in the blue pastel apartment for going on twelve years now.

And that they hadn’t been on speaking terms for almost eight of those years.

When Sammy first called Lily up to ask her to move in, she hadn’t believed him at first. After a few hours of needling over several days, she finally realized he was serious.

 _You stop giving up, then, Shotgun?_ She asked, and Sammy hadn’t even bit back something sarcastic, he just said _Yes._

She must have heard the _please help me_ that he was hiding in that answer, because she’d agreed.

“Well, Stevens, I assume you still don’t know how to put dishes away,” Lily said with the steely resolve of someone who didn’t want to talk about Jack.

“And I assume you still leave the laundry in the machine on accident and will expect me to put it away for you,” Sammy responded.

“Glad we’re on the same page,” Lily said, a little smirk on her face that quickly turned into a grimace. “Look, Stevens – I don’t know what happened to get you to work on this thing called moving on and healing. But I’m glad you’re doing it, alright?”

“I’m not moving on,” Sammy corrected, “but I am moving forward. Especially….especially with you. We haven’t moved forward in – in a long time.”

Lily studied his face carefully, and seemed to find something she was looking for in it. “Agreed. And if you need tough love, you know I’m your bitch.”

Sammy laughed out loud.

It was a start.

* * *

 

Lily kept her word, and was indeed an absolute bitch. But that’s what Sammy had always loved about her, her ability to take absolutely no bullshit from anyone, especially Sammy Stevens.

Living with Ben had been healing in a softer way. Ben dithered and hovered and was constantly checking in, making sure Sammy was alright, seeing if he could do anything, help anything, anything at all.

Living with Lily was healing in an entirely different way. When Sammy didn’t shower, Lily told him his hair looked like a rat’s nest. When he didn’t eat, Lily told him she sure as hell wasn’t cooking anything for him, he needed to get the hell up and do it himself and no, a pop tart doesn’t fucking count, Stevens.

Ben was wonderful and Sammy would always be grateful for those few weeks with him, but Lily didn’t shape her life around making sure Sammy was living his. She was far too busy living her own, and Sammy better catch the fuck up if he wanted any sympathy from her.

He didn’t feel fragile living with Lily. He had to give as good as he got.

One night about a month into their living arrangement, Sammy got back to the apartment a little after midnight to find Lily perched on the edge of the couch, beer in her hand, looking rattled and jumping up as Sammy unlocked the door.

“Where’ve you been?” she said, a snarl in her voice as if he’d affronted her somehow.

“Ben’s,” Sammy said slowly, not quite used to this experience with Lily yet. Back in college, she used to get worried when Jack didn’t come home – always the worried big sister. Sammy usually didn’t get the same treatment. “Movie night. He and Emily were getting cuddly and amorous, so I ducked out early.”

Lily’s shoulders relax and she takes a long swig of her beer. “Did being that close to straight PDA make you break out into hives?”

“…Almost,” Sammy gave her with a little smirk, and she almost laughed. “Seriously, what’s the matter? Did I break curfew, Mom?”

Lily looked at the floor, and Sammy could tell that even though she was about to say something bitchy, she was self-conscious. “Almost. Should’ve called Troy on your ass, had him drag you home in cuffs.”

“You were worried about me,” Sammy said slowly as it dawned on him that Lily was expressing a genuine, caring emotion toward him. “You were worried I was…what?”

Lily’s jaw set as Sammy walked across the room to sit opposite on her on the couch, waiting patiently for a response. He didn’t know if he’d get a real one, but this was why he wanted Lily here with him. So they could work through their shit.

“I heard your last broadcast, Stevens,” Lily said in a tight voice. “I know what you tried to do. What you’d thought about doing for a long time before that, too.”

“I’m not thinking about it anymore,” Sammy said, inching closer to Lily but not close enough to touch. “After that night – after the lights almost – I’m really doing it, Lily. I’m really….accepting help. Trying to build a life. Trying to save – save Jack.”

Lily winced, her body curling tightly in on itself. “I – I’m glad. But Jack’s –”

“Out there,” Sammy finished firmly. “He saved me, Lily. I really think he saved me.”

“I used to think –” Lily started, stopping to shudder slightly, before continuing, “I used to think that he saved me. Right – right after he disappeared. I had drunk so much that night. All I wanted was to – was to see him again. I got alcohol poisoning. They had to pump my stomach. But I lived. And I thought maybe…maybe it was my little brother watching over me. I’ve always been an atheist. Except in that one moment where I thought maybe, just maybe, Jack saved me. So which one of us is right, Stevens?’

“You never told me that,” Sammy said, his heart seizing up at the thought of Lily doing that to herself. She’d always been the toughest person he’d known.

“You never told me about your shit, either, so don’t –” Lily cut herself off with a deep sigh. “God, Stevens, we could’ve done something. Helped each other. But instead we were just bitter. It’s on me just as much as you. My brother disappeared when we were barely just back on speaking terms. I never got to say goodbye.”

“I was _there_ and I didn’t get to say goodbye,” Sammy reminded her, the old wound still sore. “But you’re right. All of this shit would’ve been easier if the two of us had gotten the hell over ourselves.”

They were silent for a moment. Lily took another swig of her beer.

She didn’t meet Sammy’s eyes as she said “I’m glad you failed, Stevens. World would be a worse place without you.”

“You too,” Sammy said quietly. Without a word, Lily handed Sammy her beer. He finished it off in one long drink.

“After – after my hospitalization,” Lily said suddenly after a moment, “I got a tattoo. Jack’s initials on my shoulder. Right next to the scar he gave me when we were kids.”

She pulled back the sleeve of her shirt and Sammy could see the _JW_ in the crease of the collarbone. It makes something inside of him ache.

“ _I didn’t give you the scar, Lily_ ,” Sammy said in an awkward and bad impression of Jack, who constantly denied having anything to do with the red splotch on Lily’s shoulder blade. “ _You did it to yourself by landing in the gravel after riding your bike too fast._ ”

“Only because you were chasing me!” Lily grinned widely for half a second before her eyes went dark and stormy after remembering that Sammy wasn’t Jack; that Jack wasn’t here with them.

But for the first time, Sammy could see a future where he was, when the three of them would be together again, sniping and yelling and mocking but _together_ , and it was all he could do to keep himself from crying.

“The tattoo was so that – so that I’d never hurt myself, because then I’d be hurting his name,” Lily said, biting her lip, not making eye contact with Sammy. “And so that I would always have him with me, reminding me to be my best and not be too much of an asshole.”

 “You’re just the right amount of asshole,” Sammy told her because it sounded like something Jack would say, and she chuckled under her breath.

“Maybe you should get his initials tattooed,” Lily said, and she sounded serious. “To remind you not to hurt yourself. If things get bad again.”

She clearly meant that if Sammy and Ben’s half-formulated plans drudged up nothing, if Jack was really gone. Sammy knew he wasn’t, but Lily Wright didn’t believe things on faith alone.

“Maybe,” Sammy said, the idea a sweet one regardless.

“I’m sure you could find his signature somewhere,” Lily mused allowed, “and get it on your wrist or something. You couldn’t slash through his name, Stevens. I know you.”

“I couldn’t,” Sammy admitted, a lump in his throat at the mere idea. “Got two wrists, though.”

“Ask Ben to sign the other one,” Lily said as if it were obvious. “I’m sure he’s the only reason you lived long enough for us to have this conversation in the first place. And the little guy would be flattered. He might cry.”

“He _would_ cry,” Sammy said, and he knew his voice sounded a little wistful. “That’s actually a good idea, Lily.”

“Actually?” Lily snorted. “I’m offended. I have good ideas all the time.”

“Sure,” Sammy said, but not with any kind of bite. “But I like this one. I think it’ll – it’ll help my friends worry less. And I spent so long – so fucking long – not even saying Jack’s name. I wanna make up for that somehow.”

Sammy swallowed the growing lump in his throat to get out his last sentiment of “And if all of this really is hopeless – if he’s really gone – then his name will stop me. I couldn’t do that to his name.”

“That’s what I thought,” Lily said, studying his face carefully before reaching over and quickly squeezing Sammy’s knee before moving her hand back to her lap. Sammy appreciated the sentiment nonetheless. “I know I give you a lot of shit, but Sammy? Don’t you dare die on me, alright?”

“Don’t _you_ die on me,” Sammy said, and they both nod together.

* * *

 

Ben cried when Sammy asked him for the signature.

Sammy also cried a little, but he didn’t tell Lily that.

Lily was the one who went with him to the tattoo parlor in Big Pine. It only seemed right. Besides, it was a bonding activity the likes of which they hadn’t done in ages, and it really felt like they were on their way to becoming friends again. Friends who were very mean to each other about nothing, but friends nonetheless.

Still, she held Sammy’s hand through the pain under the guise of calling him a little bitch who couldn’t handle needles, which was progress for them.

Jack’s signature had always been a ridiculous scrawl where only the J was legible, and Sammy was sure he’d make fun of Jack’s handwriting in his head every time he looked down. Ben’s was messy as hell too, because apparently the people Sammy loved were destined to have the shittiest handwriting of all time.

The two tattoos are wrapped up gingerly when they’re completed, and Sammy turned to Lily for a laugh. “Ben’s gonna be so disappointed when I head over to his house, he really wants to see them.”

“Another movie night?” Lily said with a sardonic raise of her eyebrow like she’s making fun of him. But Sammy wasn’t going to fall for her shit anymore.

“Yeah, wanna come?” He said casually as if Lily hangs out with his friends every day of the week. “We’re gonna watch _Little Miss Sunshine_.”

“Jack loved that movie,” Lily said a little wistfully, a half-smile on her face before she caught herself and schooled her expression into her usual scowl. “I mean…if you want me to come, I will. I guess you probably need an ally to stand against the disgusting straight PDA life of Ben and Emily.”

“Absolutely,” Sammy told her, and she hid a smile from him.

It felt like progress.

Sammy had forgotten most of the plot of _Little Miss Sunshine_ that didn’t involve suicide, but when Steve Carrell’s character said _he gets down to the end of his life and decides that all those years he suffered, those were the best years of his life, ‘cause they made him who he was_ , he felt like he maybe he can understand that part, too.

Suffering had been Sammy’s life for years now, but even the midst of it, he was still spending an evening throwing popcorn at his best friend and his girlfriend with his friend turned enemy turned friend on his side for the first time in years.

The next morning, he unwrapped the bandages on his wrists to see the names _Jack Wright_ and _Ben Arnold_ in shiny black ink and knew that for all his suffering, he’d never do anything to hurt those two names, no matter how much worse it got.

But it really did feel like the worst was finally behind him, that nothing could be a lower point than that night.

Jack would be so surprised to see his name, Sammy thought. That he had Jack’s name there for everyone to see. That he wasn't going to hide it.

In another fit of newfound courage, Sammy rummaged through his dresser drawer to find his engagement ring.

It had stayed buried for too long.


End file.
